I don’t want to do another holiday with DSS

[Penelopevoncleef]

Simple as what the title says. Whether I get bull dozed for this or not but I’m at the end of my tether

quick background, me & dh share two toddlers age 3 & 2 and he has DSS age 9 who is with us EOW. We love our holidays abroad and work very hard to save up for them. DSS has always been on every holiday with us and never missed school as we make sure it’s not term time when we book. In all the years I’ve known him, he has never once been abroad with his mum or even anywhere in the UK. So all his holidays abroad and UK have been with us.

so the last couple of years our holidays have been tricky with DSS and to be honest I find him ungrateful. Last year over the Christmas holidays we were very kindly treated to Disneyland Paris off my parents who’d had a pay out. It was what they wanted to spend the money on and they booked and paid for the whole thing, including our spends (we provided the children’s spends for things like toys/ keepsakes).
anyway DSS behaviour was diabolical, the first kick off was when we arrived at our hotel to find my parents had booked us to stay at the Cheyenne and not the marvel hotel. I just want to add he hasn’t shown interest in Spider-Man for 2 years now. They booked the Cheyenne because it was all they could afford given the amount of people they were paying for, not the theming. I felt really sad for my parents for this. Then following that it was 3 days of complaining and moaning about being bored, wanting to go on all the big rides but there were huge queues and didn’t want to wait, constantly demanding food and drinks. Just blatantly ungrateful. So after day 1 I had to say to dh, for all our sake, that we would separate and I would go off and do all the ‘baby stuff’ with the little ones so DSS wasn’t bored. We managed to salvage the trip and my toddlers loved it, but they kept asking where daddy was and dh was upset he missed them meeting Woody and going on the rides with them. In those circumstances I didn’t know what to do for best, I didn’t want the trip to be ruined and I wanted everyone to enjoy it as much as possible. My toddlers can’t go on the big rides and DSS hasn’t got the patience or tolerance for jointing in the smaller rides or meeting characters and watching parades.

anyway this brings me to our Easter holiday - this year we went to Tenerife and honestly I was dreading it. And I wasn’t wrong to feel like that. I basically spent 10 days with my toddlers by myself - one of which still had a nap so I had to co ordinate that too whilst still entertaining the older one in the baby pool. DSS was in a constant sulk, it was too hot, air con was too cold, food wasn’t nice, pool was boring, Wi-Fi wasn’t good enough, wanted to sit in the hotel room a lot, in the end it honestly wasn’t work the sulking or the kick off when trying to be strict with him. dh ended up following him around and I was with our toddler on my own which was bloody hard work. Also he was very unkind to my 3 year old who was ‘getting on his nerves’ and flung all of his toy fish into the pool when he was playing at the side.

im honestly don’t work working really hard and paying half towards these holidays and not enjoying it. I don’t think I’m selfish in feeling like that. My dh has said he now feels the same and starting to resent DSS coming away with us. He feels like he never gets to spend time with his other children. We just feel it’s not right to take our other two children away and leave him at home with his mum who never has and probably never will take him anywhere.

has anyone else ever been in this situation? What did you do?

I don’t blame you, he sounds very hard work and his strops and ungratefulness should be dealt with by his dad. However you have to ask yourself if it was one of your dc acting up, would the answer to be just leave them at home? Because this is essentially what you’re expecting your dh to do.

Next time, term time holiday for you, DH and the younger ones. That will save money and that can be used on a mini break for stepson and DH to do together as @beautyqueeen suggested around a football match or theme park or similar.

Should have summarised: that might give you a break from each other, and provide playmates for DSS.

Personally I have seen a lot of kids that are hard work at this age. My friends soon was and now and 15 he is the most polite lovely young man.

I’m a stepmother myself and have gone through the age gap issue. It’s really not easy to navigate at all. Nine year olds can be really tricky and you’re not saying whether your partner is making it clear that this behaviour is not on - that does need to happen. But this poor kid only gets his holidays with you. His parents should be a safe (within limits) space to be himself. My own stepkids got frustrated in their teens to have toddler-driven activities and I don’t think we got it right. But as the parents you need to be part of finding some sort of compromise. Splitting up at a theme park is basic stuff given the different interests at play. But don’t punish him by taking away holidays before thinking more about what sort of balance there could be, and also whether your DH can do more to get him to moderate his behaviour a bit. As others have said, it’s entirely possible that your own kids will be trying to wheel out the attitude in a few years but you’ll be confident in telling them to wind it in. Don’t let your stepson suffer for lack of boundaries - that’s for the adults to sort out.

You have a DH problem here. You’re allowing his behaviour to happen. What were the consequences for DSS behaving like that? He got to go and do what he wants. You and DH are allowing this behaviour.

Book without DSS.
Could your husband book a caravan holiday or something just him & his son so it’s “fair”?

The one thing that stood out was dss complaining about the WiFi... At 9?.. jeez you have some bloody awful years ahead if he is accessing the Internet already...

If you had a biological 9 and 3 year old you’d have similar issues, you’d spend all day in the big pool with the older one and DH would be in the baby pool with the toddler, the same as Disney World. Me and my husband went to Tenerife last year with his daughter who is 13 and she was similar, moaning it was to hot/boring/rubbish Wi-Fi.. She doesn’t act like this on holiday with her mum. I had a chat with her and she said that because the holiday with her mum is a group holiday with friends there’s other teens there to hang out with. It’s probably the same for your step son, of course he doesn’t want to hang around the toddlers pool/rides.
We have agreed this summer after speaking to my stepdaughter that she doesn’t have to come on the beach holiday with us but it’s important she still does something with her dad so they are doing two long weekends over May half term and summer.. Mount Snowdon and Barrie’s Island (her choice 😂) Could your husband arrange something like this with his son?

Has he been made aware that he spoilt previous holidays?

Have you discussed it once you've come back home?

I've found that other people can have very different perspectives on what a holiday was like. They look back and remember the good bits and not their moaning, sulking, strops etc.

Start going away while he’s with his mum.

He is nine. He is old enough to know this behaviour is unacceptable. He isn’t a toddler anymore. He can know that because he has previously ruined the holidays, he is no longer welcome.

This.

What happened when he kicked off about the hotel in Disneyland? What kind of consequences does he get for his behaviour?

It sounds like he actually gets what he wants when he kicks off - Dad all to himself and then gets sort of rewarded for it.

He’s 9 and it reads that you expect him to fit in with the wants/needs of your much younger children, who due to the little time spent together, will have little relationship.
I have had friends whose older children, when visiting, have had to fit around the younger children. It led to resentment and they got the message and stopped visiting. When you see so little of your parent - that must be incredibly hard.
I am not suggesting his behaviour is acceptable and action does not need to be taken but you’re the adults - he’s a child. But simply leaving him out will send a very strong message that will forever damage the relationship. This may suit you well.

I think he is at an age where he is starting to act up a bit.9 year olds can be like this.Also there is a big age gap ,and he probably feels miffed that he has EOW with his Dad ,and they see him all the time .I think to go away with LO term time and maybe a week camping with Dad on his own . Also why does his Mum not go anywhere with him ? It shouldnt be just down to you guys

I think most 9yos would be bored waiting for the toddler stuff so maybe it’s a balance of managing his expectations before (talking to him about where you’re staying etc), plan a balance and articulate how it’ll work, manage his behaviour.

9yos can be stroppy but 9 yos on a holiday where the toddlers are the main focus (they will be because toddlers need more focus so that’s not a criticism) then expecting them to be grateful is setting him up to fail. I think splitting at Disney was inevitable because the ages are so different - I think you were a bit unrealistic. That doesn’t mean he should be rude but I can see why he would have a huff.

making your perfect family and pushing dss out because he’s too tricky and needs parenting isn’t going to help his behaviour and totally sucks. You married a man with a dc and now you’re manipulating the inconvenience of dss out of family time. Not okay. You chose this life, the good and the bad.

But if you and your dh had an older child you would split so they could go on older rides.
no parent would expect the older child to just stay and go in toddler rides at any them park.

it does sound like he needs some more boundaries. Would he benefit from spending more time with you all.

I do think 9 y/o can be particularly annoying and whiny. What does he like, is there something he take to occupy him when he’s getting extra annoying?

Tbh if my DD9 behaved like this (outside of the normal 9 years old whining) I'd just put her in the kids club! Her choices would be sort the attitude and enjoy family time or your going to the kids club

Maybe not appropriate for Disneyland but if you were booking a regular villa or etc, had you thought of inviting one of DSS’ mates along to keep him entertained? There’s a 10 year age gap between my DDs and this is what we did when youngest was a time-consuming toddler.

Or have you considered somewhere where they have clubs for the kids so DSS could go off and make some friends his own age. Particularly over the coming years when he’ll be older and could do more of his own thing?

Go term time with dh and your toddlers- the money you will save will pay for dh and Dss to have a shorter separate trip that he can choose

One of dd's friends has a boy and girl, only a 3y age gap, and they go away separately because the dc have such different interests. I don't think it's an issue as long as everyone gets a holiday they enjoy.

If you go term time with the littlies it'll be much cheaper so you should be able to manage a trip for dh and dss as well.

Book a term time holiday when you’re not scheduled to have him.

My step son was two when my husband and I got together. We went on to have children together. We used to take my stepson on holiday every other year, rather than every time we went. His mother took him on holiday a couple of times over the course of his childhood and he always enjoyed his holidays with us. He’s in his thirties now and still talks about his holidays to Europe and America.

Maybe this is the problem though, he should get time alone with his dad and his dad should make sure it happens. This happened with DD and she doesn’t even sleep over at her dad’s now. They were arranging everything age appropriate for the younger child and my daughter just had go along then she got older and pushed back. Then she was seen as the problem. Not fair really is it?

Could you go with friends or family who have a friend for him to play with him?
Or would he go to kids clubs for some of the time if you went somewhere with these?

He’s a child spending time with a parent he only sees every fortnight and two small siblings who get to be with his father all the time. He’s the awkward age of 9. The OP hasn’t said what sort of conversations have been had with him about his behaviour and if he’s fully aware of how difficult he’s being. But it’s not his fault he’s navigating all this. It’s hard work. I don’t think many of us would leave our nine year olds at home and go on holiday without them when they’d been a whiny pain. It’s part of parenting.